real Lon­don

I bet this view isn’t what you pic­ture when you think of liv­ing in London.

For­get the tourist sights, the the­atre, the restau­rants, the museums.

Real Lon­don is all about the riv­er.  New York­ers tend either to stay in the bor­ough where they live and work, or com­mute from one bor­ough to anoth­er for life and work, occa­sion­al­ly using anoth­er cross­ing for a hol­i­day, a vis­it to rel­a­tives.  But Lon­don­ers cross any num­ber of bridges all day, every day, because the riv­er bisects our lives as it twists and turns through­out the city.  There are 34 bridges in Lon­don!  The riv­er is just everywhere.

In our new house, I can see the Thames from my bed­room win­dow, and I can chart the height of its waters by the odors that blow through­out our neigh­bor­hood: a whiff of saline, a bit of seag­ull, the smell of wet rocks and sea­weed.  Did you know that the Thames is a tidal riv­er?  Not every­one does know that.  It can be very, very low, as it is in the pho­to above, or very, very high.

Of course, last spring saw some unbe­liev­able high tides dur­ing a full moon.  Remem­ber this crazy sight?

That’s my BIKE PATH.  I remem­ber feel­ing the tug of the tide on my Wellies.

We can eas­i­ly cross the riv­er in three or four dif­fer­ent places in one day.  Once in the morn­ing at Barnes Bridge, we haul our bikes up the steps for a long ride along the tow­path, cross­ing Kew Bridge on our way home.

Then we cross at South­wark Bridge to vis­it our lit­tle plot of net­tles (wish­ing that the bureau­crat­ic non­sense slow­ing down our build­ing project would abate).  Sad­ly our view of Tow­er Bridge is obscured now by the giant hous­ing com­plex going up next door.  But John is still very excit­ed, con­tem­plat­ing our new home, someday.

It will be amaz­ing, trad­ing our qui­et south­west Lon­don life for a taste of the East End, some­day in the future, with Avery gone to uni­ver­si­ty.  Here will be our bedroom!

Then we cross the bridge again at Ham­mer­smith to pop into Avery’s school and stand behind the wine bar for the new moth­ers’ and fathers’ first Par­ents’ Evening, answer­ing their anx­ious ques­tions.  “Do you ever get used to the crazy names for the years?  Low­er Fifth?  Mid­dle Fourth?”  “My daugh­ter has already lost her hood­ie.  What are the hours of Lost Prop­er­ty?”  It’s hard to believe we’ve all been a part of that school for five years.  Remem­ber the Christ­mas Fair?  What fun we have had, real­ly get­ting behind the scenes at such an icon­ic institution.

I’ve been think­ing a lot about Lon­don and what it is like to live here, over the past few days.  Over the week­end, the for­mer Lon­don cor­re­spon­dent for the New York Times wrote a piece about her life here, hav­ing gone “home” to New York after 18 years in Lon­don (I absolute­ly adored her book “The Anglo Files” from sev­er­al years ago, and a recent piece she wrote for the Times on her move back to New York is one of the best I’ve ever read com­par­ing the two cul­tures).  In the piece from the week­end, she men­tioned how dif­fi­cult it was not to feel like an “imposter” in Lon­don, and how removed she felt from tru­ly belong­ing.  She wrote about Trafal­gar Square and Har­vey Nichols and Har­rods, and how they all seemed vague­ly out of reach, to her, not tru­ly “home.”  I can cer­tain­ly relate to the effort that it takes to pen­e­trate real life here.  It takes a lot of sus­tained effort.

Lon­don, to me, isn’t con­tained in vis­its to any of the tourist des­ti­na­tions.  I go Trafal­gar Square only to meet a friend in the quirky restau­rant under St Mar­tins-in-the-Fields, called (for obvi­ous rea­sons) The Crypt.  I’m far too intim­i­dat­ed by high-fash­ion clothes shop­ping to even walk through the doors of Har­vey Nichols, and I take vis­it­ing friends to Har­rods to see the fish dis­play in the Food Hall, but that’s it.  Lon­don, to me, is “get­ting stuck in,” as the Eng­lish say, with my lit­tle neigh­bor­hood world.  This means being excit­ed with Mal­colm, the local green­gro­cer at Two Peas in a Pod, when he gets the lease to the shop next door and can fill it with a sea­son­al display.

Lon­don is spend­ing a week or so chivy­ing all my bell­ring­ing friends to make cakes and Jam­my Dodgers and straw­ber­ry tarts to bring to the church Cof­fee Shop, and then vol­un­teer­ing at St Mary’s one bright Octo­ber Sat­ur­day morn­ing to sell those cakes to all the parish­ioners, to make mon­ey for the Bell Restora­tion Fund.

And Lon­don is most def­i­nite­ly get­ting a firm hug from my friend Col­in, hap­pi­ly wash­ing dish­es with me that morn­ing.  He used to be a bell­ringer, but has giv­en up his rope reluc­tant­ly, now in his 9th decade.  Once in awhile we meet for cof­fee and he flirts suc­cess­ful­ly with every waitress.

Liv­ing in Lon­don, or any­where, is much cosier when you do what the locals do, which for me obvi­ous­ly means bell­ring­ing.  I have suc­ceed­ed final­ly at some­thing mad­den­ing called “Grand­sire Dou­bles,” with whose details I will not bore you, but can you imag­ine, these are the instructions?

I am hap­py to report that where I was near­ly in tears at prac­tice three weeks ago, I can now man­age to keep my head above water and ring this “method” with­out too much fear.  Which was good, recent­ly, because I had to ring it at a beau­ti­ful wed­ding.  After­ward, the wed­ding par­ty squab­bled ami­ca­bly dur­ing pho­tos.  “And so it begins,” said my ring­ing friend Giles, shak­ing his head wisely.

Lon­don is most def­i­nite­ly encap­su­lat­ed in my social-work vol­un­teer­ing.  I will nev­er under­es­ti­mate the priv­i­lege of being in a fam­i­ly’s home, lis­ten­ing to their strug­gles with nurs­ery school, pot­ty-train­ing, vis­it­ing in-laws, trips to the pedi­a­tri­cian.  Being the moth­er of a near­ly 17-year-old, I do not take light­ly the joy of hav­ing a tod­dler on my lap, the fun of walk­ing to play­group lis­ten­ing to lit­tle girls singing ran­dom­ly, “Two lit­tle dick­ie birds sit­ting on a wall, one named Peter, the oth­er named Paul…”

I am about to be “grad­u­at­ed” from my cur­rent social-work fam­i­ly, because it has been a year and that’s the con­tract.  I look at the lit­tle chil­dren I met a year ago, a bit mut­ed and sad and lone­ly, and hear them laugh­ing hys­ter­i­cal­ly and shar­ing lit­tle jokes with me, and I know it’s time to say good­bye.  I have done my job.  But it will hurt.

Maybe that’s the key to belong­ing, any­where.  You have to be will­ing to get hurt.  It’s tempt­ing to sit on the periph­ery of any life, observ­ing the pecu­liar­i­ties of the locals, mar­vel­ling at (for the Eng­lish) their ret­i­cence, their ten­den­cy to say “sor­ry” every five min­utes, their obses­sion with tea breaks.  Lord knows I have been the brunt of a lot of laugh­ter at every bell­ring­ing prac­tice when I haul out my bot­tle of cold water as every­one else is queue­ing for tea!  But it’s real­ly at just those moments, when I’m close enough to being Eng­lish to be made fun of for my not being Eng­lish, that I adore liv­ing here the most.  And the moment an Eng­lish friend los­es her ret­i­cence, con­fid­ing a sto­ry or shar­ing an anec­dote that is close to her heart, the inti­ma­cy is all the more to be cher­ished because you know you’ve earned it.  You’ve passed a sort of test when the bar­ri­ers begin to come down, and it’s to be deeply wished.

I know I’ll nev­er tru­ly belong.  My accent, my ten­den­cy to be indis­creet, the lack of even one silk flo­ral dress in my clos­et, gives me away as a for­eign­er.  But I can get close enough to trea­sure every moment that I get under the sur­face, at the end of a rope or the foot of a bridge.

And the next time I need to turn up at a church bake sale with a cake, I’m lucky to have a prop­er Bram­ley apple tree in my back gar­den.  What could be more Eng­lish than that?

Apple and Banana Cake

(serves about 8 for tea, also very good for breakfast)

1 1/2 cups/200g plain flour

1 tsp bak­ing soda

1 tsp bak­ing powder

1/2 tsp each ground cin­na­mon, cloves and nutmeg

pinch sea salt

1/2 cup/113g butter

1 cup/200g sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

about 1 cup/120g/2 medi­um mashed bananas

about 1 cup/120g/2 medi­um chopped apples

1 tbsp con­fec­tion­er’s sugar

Com­bine all dry ingre­di­ents. Cream but­ter and sug­ar, eggs and vanil­la. Mix togeth­er dry and wet ingre­di­ents and add mashed banana and chopped apple. Bake at 350F/180C for 45 min­utes. Cool slight­ly and dust with sug­ar. Serve warm.